


Love Hurts

by HalRose



Series: The Shakarian Project [24]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Are you ready to be a One-Turian Woman is code for marriage proposal, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Marriage Proposal, Mass Effect 3, No Shepard Without Vakarian, Shakarian - Freeform, Shepard has too much coffee, Shepard is a bad liar, Swearing, i wrote this with a friend in discord, set after Mordin dies, set after Thane dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:02:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26707171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalRose/pseuds/HalRose
Summary: “Are you really going to leave without asking me the question you’ve been dying to ask me?”- Garrus and Shepard talk about events that have happened. Set during Mass Effect 3, before the Citadel date
Relationships: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian
Series: The Shakarian Project [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1876087
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Love Hurts

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the entirety of this in the space of a 2 and a half hour discord conversation between me and a good friend called Stephen, where I acted as Shepard and he acted as Garrus.  
> I cannot thank him enough for this, this was so much to write

**Athena**

I’ve been trying so hard to keep carrying on with my work, that I don’t really listen to the seemingly endless amounts of Admirals and Council Members and Alliance members that seem to come to me, acting like I’m some miracle worker because apparently I’m the only one that can end this war.

Coffee has become a good friend of mine, and yet at the same time I feel nothing any more.  
Mordin is dead. Now Thane is dead and the others act like it hasn’t really happened at all.

I want to get rid of all my feelings – I’m too used to seeing the dead. Too used to seeing good people go before me.  
I don’t know much of what happens next, I just need to make my way down to the Main Battery to see the love of my life and ask him what to do, because I’m going insane.

He understands what I’m going through. He’s been helping Palaven deal with the Reapers.  
He turns around as soon as he hears me – he’s grown to recognise whose footsteps are who.

“Garrus…” I sound like I haven’t seen him in forever

"Yes, Shepard?" He replies, his head turning with one eye glancing back at the console.

I move closer to him, making sure nobody else can hear this conversation.

"It's...EDI, she wanted me to tell you that the aft cannons should be back online in the next hour" I said, only half thinking about what I just said.

"Oh." He says, surprised "Well, I will wait to finish diagnostics until then."

My mind isn't working. 

All I can think about is Mordin and Thane and was there anything I could have done to avoid it, any of it really not just them. Was there anything I could differently. I am staring at Garrus but not really seeing him. My mouth is forming words but I have no idea what I just said. 

"You just told me that." His voice brings me back.

"Huh?" I say, shaking myself back to the present.  
Garrus tilts his head and looks at me.

"You just told me about what EDI said"

I blink. for a moment I consider telling him what is on my mind but the moment passes and I turn to go.

“Are you really going to leave without asking me the question you’ve been dying to ask me?" He says, and the floodgates of my mind burst.

“Do you think I’m a monster?” The words come out faster than anything else I’ve ever said in my god damn life and I see the horror in his face.

“Oh, Shep. Is this because of Thane and Mordin?” He sighs.

“Every one we know and love is dying around us. Everything we had, is falling apart because I turn up and try and make things better. I’m destroying what’s left in this world. I’m supposed to be saving the world, not destroying it.”

“First off, the Reapers are the ones destroying the galaxy, and two, you try your best, it’s not your fault these things happen.”

I’m trying not to cry. I hate crying. I need to be strong, but I’m far from it at the moment. The inhumane amounts of caffeine coursing through my veins.

"How can you be sure I am really who you think I am anymore, after what they did to me?" I ask.

Garrus looks puzzled for a moment, before he realises I’m talking about Cerberus. 

"It doesn't matter what they did or did not do. You are you and some wiring and skeletal reconstruction or whatever they did to bring you back cannot change that because only You can decide the version of you that you want to be. for my part, you are the strongest most beautiful woman in the galaxy and I will never leave your side even if that means charging into hell itself with you." He replies holding me and pulling my head to his chest; letting me cry into him.

I calm myself down, knowing I cannot go on like this. I need to be strong.

“Did it ever cross your mind how if I hadn’t had come for you on Menae, or even on Omega, that you’d probably be dead right now? Do you ever… regret anything?” I sound so helpless. “Do you not think I could have done at least one thing differently?”

I sound so stupid, and I make Garrus promise that this conversation never leaves the Main Battery, because if the Crew sees that I’ve been crying, who knows what the hell that would do to the morale.

"There are thousands of things you could have done differently. Many of the choices you have had to face have been hard, but it is living with those choices that is what makes you a true leader and why everyone here follows you. As to your second question; Everyone has regrets, it is part of life. but besides small things I would say that my biggest regret was that it took so long to find you again." Garrus says all too seriously.

Is this what love is? To hurt no matter what you do, no matter what you say and sometimes it feels so good and sometimes you just want to push it all away?  
Even trying to have an argument with Garrus is pointless, because he just talks so much sense and we just… the love is there.  
He knows me so well. He knows what it’s like to be alone for so long and now we’ve found each other again, neither of us want to let go.

Love hurts, and it feels so good.  
I laugh. This is just like Garrus.  
No arguments seem to exist. If I was talking to anybody else, then our conversations would turn to arguments but with Garrus it seems impossible to have an argument.

Not that I’m complaining about not arguing – it’s nice, especially when you have to deal with so many people and the stupid Council that only care about themselves.

And yet….there's still this feeling that at any given moment, I’ll wake up and he’ll be gone. I’ll wake up and the Normandy will be burning again.  
My mind goes back to being on the streets of Earth, in London  
I could have been sold as a slave to some trader, and yet Anderson found me. That’s how I found myself joining the Alliance.

“If I was dead, would you have moved on with another human, like that Dr that still sends you chocolates? Or would you have dated Tali or someone I know? I’m asking because my mind is trying to convince me I’m not good enough for you, that you’d be better off without me” I admit the truth of why I’ve been hiding away, to Garrus “I need to know.”

"I can't see myself with anyone besides you. When I think about the future, it is always Us. I can't even imagine a future for me without you there too.”

Garrus takes my hand. He’s serious.

My heart is racing; my mind is telling me that love shouldn’t work in a war, but we’re heading towards the end of the war and this will all be over soon and it’ll be worth it.  
Our love is practically a battlefield anyway, and so many decisions I have made have been for the greater good of the galaxy, as well as for the future I have with Garrus.  
I know we have a future, but I’m worried it will never happen, that it will be snatched from under us in a cruel twist of fate… but I hold the cards.

I am the key to winning this war, this war ends with me. It is fate, it is my destiny.

I’ve been so worried about keeping Garrus safe that pushing him away only made him worry more. I realise now that I should have come to him about it, instead of having him find me in my quarters, losing my mind.

“I don’t want to lose you like I lost everybody else. I grew up on the streets of London, I could have been sold to a slave trader; things could have been so different but here we are. Every single chain of events that has happened in my life has lead up to this moment, the only question is, where do we go from here?”

My face goes red as I blush, I’m sweaty and embarrassed about everything I’ve ever said because I know Garrus loves me, and I love him and yet a single shred of doubt destroyed me.

"If you are ready to become a one Turian woman, I am yours forever."

I freeze, I know what he’s asking. It’s practically Turian code for a proposal.  
Or is it?

“Garrus… I… of course, but are you sure? I can get us shore leave and we can… we can...The Citadel…” I’m flustered.

“Shore leave, it is then. I look forward to seeing you, Shepard.” He says teasingly.

I walk out the Main Battery, trying to process what the fuck just happened.


End file.
